Emotional work involves displaying expected emotions for a job, causing stress and burnout. It disproportionately affects the poor and marginalized, and is often gendered, with women expected to display positive emotions. Creating happy work environments can reduce emotional stress and increase worker loyalty.
Emotional work is the work a person does to get their displayed emotions to match those expected for a position. Some people have a harder time with this type of work than others, and for many people emotional work can lead to increased stress and burnout. The most easily recognizable case of emotional labor is when a supervisor asks employees in customer service positions to always smile and remain pleasant, even in the face of name-calling. Jobs in which the employee’s intelligence is valued more than their physical presence often require less work from emotions, so this type of work disproportionately punishes the poor and marginalized.
There are many different examples of emotional labor, and not all of them are about being pleasant. In some cultures, a person has to be reserved or intimidating for certain jobs, even when they feel happy. Most commonly, this type of work emerges as a demand for service workers or other low-level employees to be told to present certain emotions, even if they don’t feel them. Not appearing pleasant in a customer service environment can, in some cases, lead to termination of employment.
People whose emotions are abnormally stringently regulated by their employers often experience a decreased quality of life or dissatisfaction with a job. This is because these people feel controlled and most of their day is not authentic. Interestingly, companies that feel the need to micromanage their employees’ emotions are often the same companies that treat their employees poorly, so sometimes appropriate affect training can be used as an indication of how well a company treats its employees. employees fairly.
One of the biggest problems with emotional labor is that in many cases it is extremely gendered. Women are often expected to display positive emotions at all times, and to do otherwise is considered poor customer service or a bad attitude towards work. Men have much lighter emotional expectations in the customer service field, and even when a job requires a show of affection, it’s more common for men to feel genuine emotion rather than feeling the need to pretend.
There are many ways around difficult emotional labor. For example, employees who are required to act solemn in their jobs will often feel genuine solemnity if they take their job seriously and truly care about the task at hand. One way to force employees to smile constantly is to create an environment where employees want to smile. Creating happy and fair work environments greatly reduces the emotional stress on service workers and can lead to better morale and more loyal workers.
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